Lightning From The Sky – Inside Air Force ‘Drone’ Pilot Training

ANALYSIS – As the global threats to America skyrocket, more missions call for Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) or drones, such as the MQ-9 Reaper and the RQ-4 Global Hawk.

And with that, we need more highly trained drone pilots. Lots more.

I recently had the distinct honor and pleasure of attending a graduation ceremony for a small cadre of young Air Force officers beginning their new careers as military drone pilots, officially known as RPA pilots.

Undergraduate RPA Pilot Training is conducted at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. And the Air Force's 558^th Flying Training Squadron is the sole pipeline for RPA pilot instrument qualification.

The squadron motto: ‘Semper Vigilamus' – Always Watching.

This course earns the second lieutenants their drone (RPA) pilot wings.

These new wings, like the pilots themselves, have only been around for a little over a decade.

One of the fine young men and two women in the class was Second Lieutenant Erik Bohrnstedt, the nephew of a close personal friend.

He and his classmates, and their supportive and beaming families, reminded me of the decency, dedication and patriotism that still exists in our country.

Among all the blue uniforms and flight suits on base, you could also find some Marine ‘butter bar' Second Lieutenants who were attending and even teaching parts of the course. 

The rows of ribbons they wore denoted they had been enlisted Marines before being commissioned.

While some Air Force pilots fly manned training aircraft at Randolph, including the still sexy T-38 Talon jets and also cool Beechcraft T-6 Texans turboprop planes, much of the air base and training facilities are fairly nondescript.

Most of the RPA training is done indoors in large rooms with computer consoles, monitors and flight simulators.

But their mission is far from nondescript.

As the Air Force website notes: “Whether it's providing close-air support, gathering intelligence or conducting strategic air strikes, RPA pilots are an integral and growing part of our nation's air defense.”

And as far as the Air Force is concerned, for the moment, there are only two primary types of drones.

One is the soon-to-be-retired RQ-4 Global Hawk long-endurance surveillance RPA, and the second is the highly effective MQ-9 Reaper drone which replaced the older Predator and is widely used in drone strikes worldwide.

The Russians recently intercepted, harassed and forced us to down one of our Reapers in international airspace over the Black Sea, as I wrote about here.

There was also dramatic footage taken of the incident by the drone itself.

In January 2020, President Donald Trump also used a Reaper armed with a ‘Flying Ginsu' precision-bladed missile to kill Iran's terror leader Qasim Soleimani, near the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq.

The RPA pilots on that mission, like many others, were based half a world away at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada.

And despite the contrived controversy at the time, it was a highly successful strike.

The Air Force flies the bulk of global, long-range drone missions, and the CIA uses its own fleet of Reaper drones.

But the Army has a large number of similar drones, in addition to many smaller, handheld or ramp-launched mini drones.

The Marines also use these smaller drones but expect to soon join the Army and Air Force with their own long-range drones intended for use on the far-flung Pacific battlefields to come.

The Navy, too, is developing its bat-like stealth X-47B carrier-based drone.

And then there are the two secretive next-generation Air Force jet drones – ‘Loyal Wingman' – that are designed to work in conjunction with stealth fighter aircraft like [the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter] or F-22 and F-35s.

They can also fly along with stealth bombers like the B-21.

Meanwhile, as part of their undergraduate pilot training, the new RPA pilots learn the theory of flight, air navigation, meteorology, flying directives, aircraft operating procedures and mission tactics.

One thing I didn't know is that the drone pilots have their own version of RIOs or Radar Intercept Officers (aka ‘Goose' in “Top Gun”) as seen in our dwindling number of two-seat fighters or strike aircraft.

In the drone flying environment, these ‘rear seat' warriors are known as ‘Sensors' or Sensor Operators. They are highly trained enlisted troops who sit side-by-side with the pilot with exactly the same flight controls.

While the pilots fly the aircraft and release the weapons, the Sensor Operators play an integral role in helping the pilot know what actions to take.

These experts manage the onboard cameras and perform surveillance, reconnaissance and real-time battle damage assessment (BDA).

Another thing to note, the basic flight training completed at Randolph is solely on simulators.

These newly minted RPA pilots will now head off to train on their specific type of aircraft at their next duty station. There they will fly their big birds for real, for the first time.

Then, it will be a continuous real-world loop of train, train, train and fight.

If you, or anyone you know, want to learn more about how to become an Air Force drone pilot, please check out the Air Force's website. 

And its Undergraduate Flying Training Guidebook.

Congrats again to Erik, his family and his cohort. 

‘Semper Frigidus' – Always Stay Frosty!

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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